Who backs up their home PC?

It used to be easy - I remember a time when everything I had downloaded/created/etc fitted on 3 cds (of course things go a lot further back than that, but I'll start here for the sake of brevity).
Then it was 6 cds and I had to be careful what I did and didn't backup.
Then (for some) it was a stack of 25 cds on a spindle and a frustrating weekend infront of the screen...

Now? I haven't backup up anything non-critical for probably 18 months - 2 years....possibly even longer!

Not sure what the options are really. DVD is a possibility, but with the massive amounts of data many people seem to have, it's still gonna take 15-20 DVDs, which would be VERY expensive.

Thoughts?

I just backup important personal files and all my photos etc. I have no need for anything else on my PC.

I only back up personal data.... eg mail psts, documents and pictures
anthing else can pretty much be downloaded or borrowed etc..
so keeps it to a few cd's

if you wanna back up everything u could buy another disk and install it just for dumping stuff onto.

I have a dvd RW which i back up my system partition without the profiles and then the profiles with my docs in (each fits on 1 dvd)

i have all my games and large programs on the 2nd partition then all my data on the 3rd.

the best way to back up all your movies and mp3s is to give them to your friends - distributed data back up system

i generally keep a ghost image of my system partition on my data disk or on another computer anyway (and vice versa)

these days data storage is so cheap buying a hdd, while not quite as secure / safe, is fairly viable.

you can always reinstall windows and apps froma ghost image (a normal xp installation with all the updates and all the codecs/ media players and other apps will fit onto a bootable ghost dvd) with a bit of room to spare) and then reinstall all your games and larger apps like photoshop etc, as lon as you have your save files.

I back up important files onto one CD. Every few months I back up my digital photos, but that's up to 2CDs by itself now. Ideally i'd like to know someone with a DVD writer so I can do an occasional full backup. Might have to buy one some time, or get the upgrade to DVD writer for my laptop.

I do the occasional backup to CD of just the important stuff.. or dump it onto the server, and have it backed up there ...

Have access to a DVD+RW now, so will be using that shortly, and if I really wanted to..

Of course, I could always do a complete back to tape on the server

Archive all date to ATI tape - Firwire external.

get up to about 90GB compressed.

Takes a few hours - just leave it running.

Sometimes require two tapes.

Tapes aren't cheap though compared to HDs these days but probably better than just data sitting on a hard drive.

Use Retrospect to put it on the tape - that way it's real easy to search and get stuff off the tapes later on.

I picked up a cheap ($175) DVDRW a while back and have been writing important stuff off to DVD since about xmas. Mostly movies that took forever to get hold of and email etc.

I don't worry about it much, I have the 'distributed backup' system of mates.

Ok, i've almost convinced myself I want a DVD writer. Any suggestions for what brand/format? I need external for my PC. There's so may different types too - which is best? I want to be able to burn stuff to DVD (DVD-RW?) and play it on my cheap home DVD player too.

Ive got a pioneer 610 i think in a ice firewire /usb2 ext case

works great and apparently all it needs is a firmware update to be able to burn dual laye disks when they come out.

lightweights.

get a second hard disk and a copy of Ghost.

Bob - I never thought of that - it's probably cheaper and maybe better to get an internal one and an ice case. It works perfectly I assume?

Rimu - I have a laptop so i'd need external in any case, and a DVD writer is much more versatile than a hard disk.

or if ghost is too intrusive (having to reboot would be a pain), you could just set up a scheduled task which automatically copies all your important files to the backup drive; use the command-line add-in for winzip and have it all compress into 1 big zip file

yeah my solution is more aimed at PFunk; too much data for DVD.

Heh i buy everything external these days - its a bit more expensive but ultimately for my uses its better

external case with dvd r/w
external case with 80gig 3.5" drive
external case with 30 gig 2.5" drive
external cd writer
external tvtuner
external 56k modem

Firewire and USB2 rock

I find that a second hdd, ( external if you want ) and Ghost is the best way to go.

Everytime i reboot my machine, i take an image of my full C drive and all its settings.

Great, if something happens to you drive u have a complete system restore from the last time you rebooted.

heh i cant afford to back everything up, i have about 380GB of files still on disk and about 200gb of files on cd.
But definately recommend backing up your files if you can, or at least the important ones.
I lost absolutely everything about a year ago, was around 140gb of files was so gutted

yeah i toasted a 160gig partition about a year ago... i ended up with 9 gig of jpegs named jpeg00001.jpg jpg00002.jpg... and some 3 day long mp3 files that were a nice medley of all my songs...

Its soul destroying looking through all your favorite files photos mp3s etc with bits missing. I ended up find the best ones and giving up on the rest.

You guys are making me want to do a backup now...